| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: Who knows whether the Dowager Empress will ever repose in the
magnificent tomb she has built for herself at such a cost, or
whether a new dynasty may not rifle its riches to embellish its
own? Tze-Hsi is growing old! According to nature's immutable law
her faculties must soon fail her; her iron will must bend and her
far-seeing eye grow dim, and after her who will resist the tide
of foreign aggression and stem the torrent of inward revolt?
--Lady Susan Townley in "My Chinese Note Book."
XXI
THE DEATH OF KUANG HSU AND THE EMPRESS DOWAGER
During mid-November of 1908 the Forbidden City of Peking was a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: the Government."
"Oh! it was he whom we used to call the System," cried Bixiou.
"Say no harm of him, poor fellow," protested Malaga. "D'Estourny was a
good sort."
"You can imagine the part that a ruined man was sure to play in 1830
when his name in politics was 'the courageous Cerizet." He was sent
off into a very snug little sub-prefecture. Unluckily for him, it is
one thing to be in opposition--any missile is good enough to throw, so
long as the flight lasts; but quite another to be in office. Three
months later, he was obliged to send in his resignation. Had he not
taken it into his head to attempt to win popularity? Still, as he had
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: wind set that way, and that the flames would shortly reach them;
and calling to the officers of the jail to come and quench the
fire from a cistern which was in their yard, and full of water.
Judging from what the crowd outside the walls could hear from time
to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help;
and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of
attachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happy
life before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of miserable
imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death.
But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men,
when they heard, or fancied that they heard, their father's voice,
Barnaby Rudge |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: sonship."
Lady Sunderbund nodded eagerly. "Yes," she said, "oh, yes," and
held up an expectant face for more.
"Our utmost words, our most elaborately phrased creeds, can at
the best be no better than the shadow of something unseen thrown
upon the screen of experience."
He raised his rather weary eyes to Hoppart as if he would know
what else needed explanation. He was gratified by Lady
Sunderbund's approval, but he affected not to see or hear it. But
it was Bent who spoke.
He spoke in the most casual way. He made the thing seem the
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